Marc My Words: Is It eLearning or Something More?

How much of our training is compensation for tools that don’t work right? How much of it is an attempt to re-explain bad documentation? How much of it is nothing more than “work-arounds,” often too little and too late, to a bad system or process? Why do we tolerate unneeded complexity, and then ask training to straighten it all out, sometimes at the last minute?

Take a look at this little Save-a-Life Simulator. Play with it for a while and come back to this article when
you’re done. I’ll wait…

Pretty cool, huh?

But let’s look a little deeper. What are we looking at? Okay, there is certainly
a training (eLearning) component, but
is that all it is? Is the training even the most important part?

To me, it is something more.

There’s no instruction in how to use the device

First there is no real instruction in how to use the defibrillator. You
learn that through performance support. Designers
took the complexity out of the training and built in real-time user directions
within the product; the defibrillator itself determines if the patient needs to
be shocked, and then literally tells
the user how to use it at the moment of need. Can you imagine a person who has
never done this before trying to make sense of a set of printed instructions
when time is so critical? By having the defibrillator actually guide the user,
errors and delays are minimized. Nice.

Motivation and confidence

So where does that leave training? Here, the training developers made
several inspired design decisions. Since the manufacturer had already built
user directions into the defibrillator, they didn’t need redundant step-by-step
instruction. What they did need, however, was a simulation that would focus on
getting someone to actually use the defibrillator in the first place. And, by
incorporating a decision-making activity, they presented realistic situations
and decisions that have life and death outcomes. This approach builds
confidence on the part of users that they can
do it, rather than having them freeze and run away.

Instant engagement

The training piece is brief and to-the-point. No objectives, no
pretests and posttests, no lessons or PowerPoint slides, etc. Quickly get the
learner involved in the critical decisions that he or she needs to make and let
the consequences of those decisions do the teaching. Clearly, making wrong decisions
brings the learning home pretty graphically and indelibly. And because the
entire program is short, it can likely be accessed anywhere and on any device—a
critical attribute of learning and performance in today’s mobile world.

Background information stays in the background

There is background information on heart rescue, with interviews, case
studies, and other content. But since this is not essential to the major
performance goal, it doesn’t dominate the training component. Instead, they provide
it via an optional “learn more” feature that displays at appropriate points in
the program. This separation of essential vs. non-essential information filters
out any “nice to know” noise and is a key in focusing the user on the most
important content.

Where was the design effort?

Another interesting aspect of this program is the relative value of training
vs. performance support. Sure, the training is valuable, but it is likely a
one-time occurrence for each person. It is hard to see anyone continually
reviewing the training. Once they get it—that they need not worry about how to
use a defibrillator, just that they need to take action and actually use it,
and that the defibrillator is as foolproof as it could possibly be—the training
can be jettisoned. As useful as the training is, I suspect much more time and
effort went into getting the performance support component built into the defibrillator
as right and user-oriented as possible.

I also suspect that when the designers of this product started taking
about how to proceed, they didn’t start by saying, “we need to build training
to teach people how to use a defibrillator.” The creators knew that the most
critical goal of this program was not to provide detailed training in
defibrillator use, but to reduce panic and increase willingness to “step
forward.” The designers knew that if they could get people to actually use a defibrillator, the rest would be
relatively easy. This represents a true understanding of the critical
performance requirements.

What if…

Imagine a world where the tools we use remove complexity rather than
add to it, and are so intuitively easy to use that we can operate them—correctly—the
first time, precisely when we need to use them, with minimal risk. Imagine a
computer that would be this easy to use. Or a smartphone. Or a home
entertainment system. You get the idea … the fact that this little simulation
focuses on a life and death issue is further testament to the power of
performance support and user-centered design.

How much of our training is compensation for tools that don’t work
right? How much of it is an attempt to re-explain bad documentation? How much of
it is nothing more than “work-arounds,” often too little and too late, to a bad
system or process? Why do we tolerate unneeded complexity, and then ask
training to straighten it all out, sometimes at the last minute? If we can
create a tool that saves lives and
teaches people how to use it at the moment of need, how many other everyday
applications could benefit from this same approach?

This is something Donald Norman has been talking about, and I find frustrating. Companies always try to add complexity in their products, thinking it somehow makes the product better.But I think if a product does one thing well, and is easy to work with, people will buy it. If - there's a need for it of course.

10/10/2012 4:29 pm by bartek.polakowski

Great e-learning example. The situation and choices are really engaging and as you said there is no knowledge overload.

How are you validating the transfer of learning from training events to the workplace? The majority of organizations still rely on measuring learner reactions and learning mastery, not the results. There is an answer: integrated performance support. In this article, read about two basic steps that put your organization on the path out of the mire of murky measurement!

Training and education (including eLearning) don’t really accomplish what we’d like them to
accomplish. What we want is for
someone to perform a task on their own, some time after they were taught how to do it. Performance
support is the way to
make this happen.

For businesses, learning institutions, and even graduating students, future success increasingly depends on the cycle of developing and enhancing valuable skill sets. Maintaining the motivation needed for that kind of sustained growth can be incredibly difficult. Here are seven research-based tips that just might help your learners get there.